Monday, March 26, 2012

Woman falsely accuses police officers of sexually assaulting her

Two Victorian policemen arrested Karly Enid Jean Mitchel, 25, for being drunk outside a South Yarra nightclub, and she repaid them by falsely accusing them of sexual assault.

Mitchel had been refused entry about 2am on August 6 last year to the Circus Nightclub and then spent 45 minutes abusing crowd controllers. The police arrived, and Mitchel became abusive. They arrested her for being drunk.

After her release from custody, she complained that she had been "groped" on her breasts by the police and touched on her inner thighs and outside her crotch.

The police investigated, and the CCTV footage and witness accounts did not support her story. She admitted the following month she had made a false report.

Mitchel pled guilty. Mitchel's defence barrister Trish Jones said Mitchel was apologetic, that she had reflected on her poor behaviour and now appreciated the effect of what she had done. Mitchel, who has no prior convictions and is a full-time carer for her young child, wrote a letter of apology to the police officers. Alcohol had been a problem for her in the past, but she had now moderated her intake. Her defense barrister claimed that at the time of this incident, she had been involved in a dispute with the father of the child.

Magistrate Bill White told Mitchel that the offence was taken so seriously because the role of police was to protect her and everyone else. It was vital, he said, for people to be honest and frank with those whose primary duty was to protect all citizens.

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Every civilized society must strive to eradicate heinous criminality by punishing offenders, but it also must insure that the innocent aren't punished with them. The latter concern typically is absent from the public discourse. Accusations of serious criminality, especially alleged sexual wrongdoing, are often their own convictions in the high court of public opinion because the stigma is so severe, and because definitively proving innocence in a disputed sex case often is impossible. This blog highlights the injustices suffered by persons wrongly accused of serious criminality.